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Source ↓: St Stephen's Presbyterian Church and Manse, Queanbeyan

Birth 26 November 1830 London, Middlesex, England

Death 27 April 1909 Double Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
(spelt DIAS too, per ADB entry https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/soares-alberto-dias-4622)

Alberto Dias Soares (26 November 1830 – 27 April 1909) was the Anglican parish priest in Queanbeyan, NSW from to 1857 – 1877??. He was also noted as an architect, though he was not trained in architecture, and designed several churches and other buildings in the area and elsewhere. Born in London, Soares was the son of the Portuguese Consul and merchant, His Excellency Manoel Joachim Soares, and his English wife Camilla (née Lodington). He attended the Putney School for Civil Engineers in London in 1849–1850. Apart from a talent for drawing, and art lessons in Oporto in 1847, his training as an engineer appears to have been his only qualification for undertaking architectural work. In August 1852, he departed for Australia with visions of a career in engineering and of furthering a grand scheme that had been proposed for a colonial railway. Once in Australia, however, he found that no-one was interested in the scheme. His life took a new direction in 1855 when he felt, and answered, a call to the ministry of the Anglican Church. Taking Deacon's orders in May 1856, he was appointed to his first incumbency, Queanbeyan, in April 1857 and ordained a priest on 7 June.

On arriving in Queanbeyan, Soares was met with an urgent need for his expertise in engineering and design. The existing Christ Church had been built in 1844 and was quite an inadequate structure. Soares thereupon designed a new church in Romanesque style and had it erected in 1859–60. The church now forms part of the heritage-listed Christ Church Anglican Group in Queanbeyan. Church of England authorities swiftly awoke to Soares's value as an architect and, when the Anglican Diocese of Goulburn was formed in 1863, the foundation bishop appointed him Honorary Diocesan Architect. During what would become nearly thirty years practice as an architect, Soares would eventually design at least sixteen churches, as well as major extensions to St John the Baptist Church, Reid in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). St Stephen's in Queanbeyan was the only Presbyterian church he designed; all the other churches were Church of England establishments.

Apart from his work as an architect for churches, Soares designed nine parsonages or rectories, three school buildings and two church halls. He undertook a small amount of private work as well, notably the Hibernia Lodge, a stately Gothic Revival residence erected in Queanbeyan in 1865 and listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register. His private work included some role, probably in an advisory and supervisory capacity, for extensions to Duntroon House in 1862 and 1876 and perhaps too for extensions to the stone Duntroon woolshed in the early 1860s. He may also have designed St Matthew's Rectory in Kiewa Street, Albury, in 1859 and the parsonage for St James' Church, Binda, in 1874 based on information from the NSW State Heritage Inventory. The architectural historian Morton Herman described Soares as "an amateur architect of no mean ability". The only comparable figure as a cleric architect in Australia is the Roman Catholic clergyman, Monsignor John Hawes (1876-1956) who practised in Western Australia in the period 1915–39.

Although Soares designed buildings in such far-flung places as Balranald (St Barnabas' Church) and Wentworth (St John's Church and Parsonage), it is not surprising that more of his buildings were erected in Queanbeyan than in any other location. He was based in Queanbeyan for twenty years and, during that time, designed seven buildings in the town. Two of them, a set of conjoined cottages in Rutledge Street and the Protestant Church Hall in Crawford Street, have been demolished, in c. 1983 and 1994 respectively. Of the other five buildings, four are listed on the NSW State Heritage Register, three of them - Christ Church, the associated school extension (1864) and the Rectory (1875) - as part of the Christ Church Anglican Group. The other NSW State Heritage Register-listed structure is Hibernia Lodge. The remaining building is St Stephen's Church in Queanbeyan.

Design and construction of St Stephen's Church

Soares prepared plans and specifications for St Stephen's by October 1871. His design, which was for a fairly plain structure, was examined by the Church Building Committee on 20 October and it was probably at this time that its members requested a more ornamental appearance for the church. Soares obliged by adding buttresses to the design. These served no structural purpose and were purely for visual effect. They also added a sum of A£100 pounds to the cost of the building, a cost that was covered by contributions of A£25 each from Dr Morton, Charles McKeahnie, Kenneth Cameron and Robert McKellar.

As construction was about to commence, the church in its final design was described as "a neat gothic structure with a bell tower surmounted by a lofty spire. The walls are to be of rubble masonary in courses with axed quoins, the arches copings, etc., to be finished with Portland cement".

Bibliography 1

• Armour, Jan (1974). And this Stone: The story of St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Queanbeyan.
• Barrow, Graeme (2016). God's Architect, The churches and parsonages of Alberto Soares.
• Bridges, Peter; McDonald, Don (1988). James Barnet Colonial Architect.
• Charlton, Ken (1998). Southern Spires.
• Cross, Rex L. (1985). Bygone Queanbeyan (Revised ed.).
• Cross, Rex L.; Sheedy, Bert (1983). Queanbeyan Pioneers - First Study.
• Evans, A. G. (1983). "John Cyril Hawes (1876–1956)". Hawes, John Cyril (1876-1956). National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
• Herman, Morton (1963). The Blackets: an era of Australian Architecture.
• Johnson, Chris; Bingham-Hall, Patrick; Kohane, Peter (2000). James Barnet: The Universal Value of Civic Existence.
• Lea-Scarlett, Errol (1968). Queanbeyan District and People.
• Mackintosh-Carter, Rev. A. G. (1914). Souvenir History of the Presbyterian Charge of Queanbeyan.
• Matheson, Ian (1976). "Alberto Dias Soares (1830–1909)". Soares, Alberto Dias (1830-1909). National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
• O'Keefe, Brendan (2010). A private domestic building by James Barnet NSW Colonial Architect.
• Wyatt, Ransome T. (1937). History of the Diocese of Goulburn.

Attribution 1

This Wikipedia article was originally based on St Stephen's Presbyterian Church and Manse, entry number 2018 in the New South Wales State Heritage Register published by the State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) 2020 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 18 February 2020.

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History

Original church

Alberto Dies Soares, Anglican Minister to Queanbeyan from 1857 to 1877, was born on 26 November 1830, the fifth child of His Excellency, Manoel Joachim Soares, Knight Commander of the Cross of Christ in Portugal, and Camilla Mary Basset Lodington. His father was Portuguese and his mother English. Alberto Dies Soares received a sound education at Stoke, Newington, Mercantile & London University schools. He studied in Porto, Portugal and at the Putney College of Civil Engineers before finishing in Paris, France. In 1852, Soares sailed for Australia where he had an appointment with the New South Wales Government Railways as an engineer. En route he decided not to take up his position but to study for the ministry instead. Following three years of study he became an ordained Minister of the Church of England and was appointed to Collector as Assistant to the Rev. Robert Cartwright in 1855. The following year be became Deacon at Collector.

In 1857 Soares married Catherine Lane of Orton Park, Bathurst and on 18 May of that year he was transferred to Queanbeyan as the Parish Priest. Christ Church in those days was a small building, measuring a mere 44 by 24 feet (13 by 7 m). It had been opened for worship on Christmas Day 1844 on the same site where Christ Church now stands; it was not consecrated however, until the Bishop of Australia, Bishop William Broughton, officiated at the ceremony on 8 March 1845, just four days before he consecrated the Church of St John the Baptist, Canberra. A rather insignificant street, Broughton Place, in Queanbeyan, commemorated the Bishop's visit.

A report in the Goulburn Herald of 14 September 1859, stated that the old Church of England, Queanbeyan, had been razed to the ground and that a new building was rapidly being erected. Soares, an accomplished architect, set about to design a new church.

Current church

The Rev. Soares, whilst preparing the design and drawings, constructed a small scale model of his church-to-be. Although without its spire, the opening service at the new Christ church was held on 7 October 1860, with the sum of A£860 still owing. The Golden Age of 15 September 1860 stated that the opening service took place at 11 am on Sunday 7 October. The same paper of 13 October 1860, indicated that Rev. A. D. Soares preached from Zachariah 4:6, whilst at the evening services, the Rev. P. G. Smith from Canberra, read from Corinthians 6:16. The sum of A£43 was collected at the opening services. On 2 March 1861 the spire was completed by the contractors, McLean and Ross at a cost of A£336.

The new church was finally consecrated by Frederic Barker, the Bishop of Sydney on 30 October 1861. The contract to build the church was granted to Daniel Jordan. His son Thomas Jordan made the pews. The cost of the church was A£4,300, whilst subscriptions and donations totalled A£4,498. During the month of the opening, tiers of stepping stones, each weighing from 10 to 15 cwt, were laid across the river from the foot of Rutledge Street to where the Severne Flour Mill once stood, thus giving access to residents of Dodsworth and Irish Town to Christ Church School which had been built in 1843. The Rev. Soares met the cost of these stepping stones which were obtained from a source some three miles away and laid by Mr M O'Keefe.

Soares' other architectural achievement following his arrival in Queanbeyan was the beautiful Victorian Ecclesiastical Gothic of St Philip's at Bungendore; its foundation stone was laid in 1864. Next followed St Paul's at Burra which resulted from the initiative of Soares' brother, the Rev. Gualter Soares, who was a catechist and a schoolmaster at the Christ Church schoolhouse; St Paul's foundation stone was laid on 12 December 1867. After designing St Mark's at Hoskinstown, in 1872 he designed the chancery and extensions to the nave in the church of St John the Baptist, Canberra. He then proceeded with St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Queanbeyan, (1872); St. Thomas', Carwoola. Next followed the Protestant Hall in Crawford Street which was opened in May 1877. Soares also re-designed the Queanbeyan Rectory and in 1865 was responsible for the brick addition to the old stone schoolhouse which still stands.

In 1877, after 20 years ministering in the Queanbeyan parish, Soares was transferred to Goulburn Cathedral and later became the Diocesan Architect. He was responsible for more than 35 churches, schools and parsonages in the Anglican Diocese of Goulburn.

Soares and his wife had five children, three girls and two boys. His first son Alberto died in 1860 as an infant and is buried in the Riverside Cemetery; his second son, also named Alberto, died at the age of 25 with no issue. Soares' father died in London in 1863 at the age of 37 and a brother Augusto died at the same time in London, aged 4. Soares died in 1909 at the age of 79 and is buried in the Waverley Cemetery.

Subsequent developments

Del para

In 1978 the Heritage Branch was advised by the Queanbeyan and District Historical Museum Society that a building application had been approved by Queanbeyan Council for the construction of a large and unsympathetic church hall on part of the site of Christ Church. The construction would involve the demolition of the original school and church buildings.

Del para

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Bibliography 2

• Branch Managers Report. Heritage Council. 26 September 1980.
• Armes, John (1999). NSW State Heritage Inventory Form.
• Cross, Rex L. The History of an Anglican Minister. Queanbeyan Historical Society.

Attribution 2

This Wikipedia article was originally based on Christ Church Anglican Group, entry number 00043 in the New South Wales State Heritage Register published by the State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 1 June 2018.